As mentioned previously, a pilot study was necessary to assess if the draft questions were fit for purpose and would generate rich and sufficient data to answer the research questions. It was not thought necessary to interview policymakers at this stage as some of their questions would only be formulated following analysis of the dancer/parent/teacher interview data. The pilot study, which lasted three months, comprised semi-structured interviews (each lasting an hour or so), with four male dancers, one teacher and one parent, sourced from two
dance schools, identified from an online database, ‘dance-teachers.org’, maintained
by the ISTD (Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing).
During the pilot, I enquired how, in principle, boys would feel about me undertaking observations in their secondary schools, especially in their dance lessons, but this was rejected unanimously. While this was unsurprising (as well as being potentially fraught with ethical and logistical difficulties), boys did not want to be the “centre of attention” within their day schools, as one dancer put it. Sensitive to this, and of the negative repercussions that might well arise for participants, I abandoned the idea of obtaining ethnographic, observational data and so was left reliant on pupil and
teacher accounts to garner an insight into boys’ life at school. (Nonetheless, I
strongly believe that gaining access to schools to research boys’ (and girls’)
experiences of dance education is a worthwhile endeavour and would be a valuable post-doctoral project).
Overall though, I judged the pilot study to have been successful and the research instruments fit for purpose. However, some minor revisions were necessary; for example, changes were made to the wording of certain questions to aid clarity, and additional questions were added such as one focussed on the media portrayal of dance and male dancers, (“How do you think dance is portrayed by the media?”) which boys had identified as being influential in shaping their perceptions of dance and male dancers. In view of this, I subsequently chose to exclude the pilot data from my analysis; however, as I planned to conduct 25 or so further interviews, I did not envisage being short of data.
As a former secondary school teacher, I was experienced in questioning pupils in a classroom environment but not so in a research interview context. However, my range of skills, of interviewing, observing and reflection, were all honed during the pilot study in readiness for the main phase of data generation. Adapting my vocabulary to suit the age of the participant, I was able to refine my questioning technique, realising the importance of asking open questions that were clear, short and unambiguous, and avoiding leading questions, technical terms and emotive language.
I was also able to hone the structure of the interview, beginning with a preamble to relax the participant, followed by a brief recap of its purpose and of their rights (e.g.
to not answer questions and to withdraw completely). Based on the pilot responses, I also revised the sequence of questions, calibrating them from easier ones to harder ones, but always ending with a positive issue or question. I found that allowing the interviewee some freedom to diverge from the question sometimes paid dividends in garnering an unexpected, valuable response, as did skilful probing, supported by such techniques as an expectant pause (to encourage vocalisations), small
gesticulations or nods to signify active listening and returning words used by the participant. These techniques were especially useful in teasing out more data from nervous, reluctant or shy interviewees.
4.5.3 Interviews with male dancers, parents and teachers
Following the pilot study, I began to recruit participants for interview, returning to
the online database, ‘Dance-teachers.org’, maintained by the ISTD, and again restricting my search to the north west of England (Cheshire, Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester), in order to minimise travel costs and time. Having decided to exclude the pilot data from my analysis, I identified a further eight potential participant schools from the database, all of whom agreed to assist me. I was most grateful for their co-operation and wholly reliant on their goodwill since, as gatekeepers, it was their task to select the participants (subject to my sampling criteria outlined above). The dance schools distributed my information sheets and consent forms to 30 or so potential participants, and once signed and returned I was given contact details for the 26 dancers who had agreed to take part. I could then set about arranging the interviews which would take place on dance school premises or by Skype, at mutually convenient times. In sum then, my data set comprised 26
dancers aged 11 to 18 in the secondary phase of education, 22 of whom attended state sector institutions, (including comprehensive and grammar schools since the latter still exist in parts of Lancashire), while 4 attended independent schools. The
latter were free to ignore the government’s National Curriculum which imposes a
statutory duty on state schools to teach dance as a component of Physical Education (P.E.) for pupils at Key Stage Three, i.e. 11 to 14-year olds. Since I also wished to canvass the views of parents, interviews with two mothers and two fathers (from different dance schools) were subsequently arranged. Similarly, I was keen to interview dance teachers and so conducted interviews with six teachers, four of whom were female and two male.
My preference was to conduct interviews face-to-face with the young dancers, and I was able to accomplish this with 23 of them while the remaining three interviews were conducted, for logistical reasons, by Skype. Initially, I had wished to avoid this mixed-mode data generation (in person and online) since I wanted to capture as much verbal and non-verbal information as possible and judged this more achievable with a face to face encounter. I also felt it might be easier to build a rapport in
person but, surprisingly, found the online encounters highly generative. Although there was a focus on the face, and much of the body language was lost online, it was, nonetheless, quite an intimate encounter, save for one participant whose father was out of shot but sometimes audible . Clearly, such instances are difficult to control but I intervened early on by diplomatically reminding the participant to close doors and windows to help eliminate the extraneous noise I could hear. Although this tactic worked, I could not guarantee that the participant was left alone for the
remainder of the interview, an inevitable consequence of this interview mode, nor was I confident that, at its conclusion, I had garnered all the possible data from him. Overall though, I took the view that, where necessary, and despite their
constraints, I would rather conduct Skype interviews than lose participants altogether.
Each school principal had provided some basic information on their school - pupil numbers, differentiated by gender and the range of dance genres taught. As can be seen in the table below, which shows each school’s pseudonym, all eight schools had
an overwhelming majority of female pupils; only Beech and Pine had a relatively high proportion of boys attending (9.7% and 8.2% respectively). These two schools were unique in offering boys’-only gymnastic and urban dance classes which they believed were an effective recruitment strategy for male dancers. Beech and Pine were in stark contrast to say, Elms, a ballroom and latin-american dance school which had only two male pupils (1.6%) and 120 female pupils (98.4%).
The data also confirmed that the paucity of boys would have made the
establishment of focus groups within dance schools, (an early idea of mine), difficult if not impossible to accomplish, and that my alternative method of individual
interviews was a more feasible strategy.
Table 4.1 List of dance schools and dance genre codes
School Name Girls on roll Girls as % Boys on roll Boys as % Dance genres taught 1. Alder 200 98.0% 5 2.0% B/T/J/C/BL/U 2. Beech 260 90.3% 28 9.7% B/T/J/C/BL/U 3. Elm 120 98.4% 2 1.6% BL 4. Hawthorn 80 96.4% 3 3.6% C/U 5. Maple 80 96.4% 3 3.6% B/T/J 6. Oak 130 97.5% 3 2.5% B/T/J/C/U 7. Pine 90 91.8% 8 8.2% B/T/J/C/U 8. Willow 60 93.8% 4 6.2% B/T/J/C/BL/U
B = Ballet; T = Tap; J = Jazz; C = Contemporary; BL = Ballroom/Latin-American; U = Urban
4.5.4 Interviews with dance administrators and policymakers
The final element of data generation was an additional set of four semi-structured interviews conducted with administrators/policy makers from two dance awarding organisations . These individuals had volunteered their cooperation in response to an appeal I had made in person to delegates at the Awarding Organisations
Committee of the Council for Dance, Drama and Musical Theatre. As with previous interviews, I provided participants with an interview schedule in advance, based on the emerging themes from my analysis. The primary focus of these interviews was to discuss my preliminary findings in order to address research question three - “How might these research findings inform policy and practice in boys’ dance education
and training?
The audio interviews were first captured using a voice recorder application on my mobile phone, then transferred to my password-protected encrypted laptop
computer before being uploaded to Lancaster ‘Box’, a file sharing resource whose
data is automatically encrypted.